Onion Chutney (Onion Dip)

Onion Chutney (Onion Dip)

When I first came to UK, I was a stay at home wife for three weeks. During that time, I would have toasted bread dipped in hummus for snack and I still remember the comfort it gave me. I then stopped having hummus for some reason and resumed just recently. While trying to figure out how to make my own hummus, I realised it could have a lot of oil hiding in it. Ofcourse, you get the low fat ones but that is not for me. I was recently looking for a variety of chutney recipes as I was getting bored of the three chutneys I usually make. Vah chef had onion chutney on his site and it looked very inviting. This is pretty much his recipe but I have not even used half as many red chillies as he has. This would be a mild chutney but feel free to add more red chillies. This goes very well with idli, dosa upma etc. and also with bread. You can use this as a dip in places where you may use hummus. You can also use this as a spread in your sandwich (you could skip the tempering for this). As it pretty much is just sautéed onions, I think it will even count towards your one of five a day! Now for the recipe...

4 onions, I used white, chopped

1 small tomato

1 small lime size ball of tamarind

3-5 dry red chillies (this would yield a mild chutney, increase if you want a hot one)

2 heaped tablespoon roasted Bengal gram or you can use cashew nuts too

Salt to taste

Cooking oil

For tempering:

1 teaspoon mustard seeds

Few curry leaves

½ teaspoon urd dal

Heat a kadai and add some oil. Once hot, add the chillies

Once they become crisp, add the onions and couple of minutes later add the tomatoes

Cook until onions are done, not browned though. Then add the tamarind flakes and cook for couple of minutes

Add required salt and allow to cool. Once cooled, add the roasted Bengal gram (daria) and grind to paste. 

You shouldn’t have to add water, but use your discretion.

To temper, heat some oil in a pan and add the mustard seeds, soon after it splutters, add urd dal and curry leaves and wait till the dal browns. Add this to the chutney, serve!

Saag Paneer

Saag Paneer

I guess everyone has days when they just want to throw things together so a scrummy meal turns up at the end. I have hose days often because I cannot begin to tell you how tight I am on time. I try to make three side dishes for rotis on Sunday so I only have to make the rotis in the evenings after work. I try to keep things simple and avoid additional processes like grinding etc. While a traditional palak paneer would require blending to smooth puree and so on, I was not up for it although we all love it. I decided to sauté everything and it did come together quite well. Here is how I made it...

2-3 bunches of palak/saag

125g paneer, cubed

1 onion, diced

1 tomato, cut into quarter

½ teaspoon black onion seeds

½ teaspoon cumin seeds

1 teaspoon garam masala

Turmeric powder

2-3 green chillies, slit

1 teaspoon coriander-chilly powder (use just coriander powder if you do not want any heat)

Salt to taste

Cooiking oil

Heat oil and add the black onion and cumin seeds. Once cumin begins to darken, add onions, add the turmeric powder and green chillies and sauté for a minute

Once the onions turn translucent, add the spinach and tomato. We are adding tomato with spinach as we do not want it to get mushy unlike regular curry

Once spinach is cooked, add the spice powders, required salt and cook until raw smell goes.

Add the paneer and cook for 3-4 minutes and serve!

Poached Egg Curry

Egg Poached in Tomato Sauce

One of my friends made egg poached in tomato sauce. I tried it once but was not sure if I liked the texture. I made a smooth sauce this time and it turned out to be nice. I am not a fan of poached egg but this is not quite the same as the regular ones. These can be eaten with rice or rotis. Use a flat bottomed dish to allow space for eggs to poach. I noticed that adding too much water to the mixture does not help as it becomes even more watery after cooking. Here is the recipe...

2 onions, chopped

1 tin tomatoes (about 3-4 tomatoes)

1 teaspoon ginger garlic paste

1 teaspoon chilly powder

1 teaspoon coriander powder

1 teaspoon cumin powder

1 heaped teaspoon egg roast masala (substitute with mixture of garam masala and fennel powder)

Cooking oil

Turmeric powder

4-5 eggs

Salt to taste

Heat some oil in a flat bottomed dish and add the onions and ginger garlic paste. Add green chillies if desired.

Once onion begin to change colour, add the tomatoes and cook until they begin to reduce and raw smell goes

Grind this to a fine paste in a blender or use a hand blender and bring back to pan. Add all spice powders and salt and bring to boil and allow raw smell to go

 Now reduce the heat and break each egg into the mixture giving room for each of them to get cooked. Cook covered eggs are done or until how wobbly you like poached eggs to be.

Serve